About this event
DOWNLOAD YOUR CONFERENCE PROGRAMME HERE
THIS IS A TWO DAY CONFERENCE
FRIDAY CONFERENCE TIMES: 6:30PM – 10:30PM
SATURDAY CONFERENCE TIMES: 9AM – 4:30PM
(View programme above for schedule)
The Pluralistic Practice Network, and Onlinevents, invite practitioners, researchers, students and service users interested in the development of flexible, co-produced ways of working together in counselling, psychotherapy and mental health care, to take part in this engaging and welcoming annual event. A range of presentations and workshops will focus on the possibilities that are arise from open-ness to multiple perspectives when supporting individuals, families and communities to overcome issues arising from experience of trauma, adversity and oppression.
The conference begins on Friday evening with a dialogue between Divine Charura (University of York St John, England; https://www.yorksj.ac.uk/our-staff/staff-profiles/divine-charura.php) and John McLeod (Institute for Integrative Counselling and Psychotherapy, Dublin; https://www.iicp.ie/faculty/johnmcleod/) on Sanctuary, Trauma and Psychotherapy: Decolonising and Pluralistic Perspectives.
The keynote presentation on Saturday is offered by Vikki Reynolds, an activist/ therapist and community organizer in Vancouver Canada (www.vikkireynolds.ca), author of many articles and papers including Justice-Doing at the Intersections of Power (Dulwich Centre, 2019), who will explore the topic of Trauma and Resistance: Innovative Responses to Oppression, Violence and Suffering.
The Saturday programme also includes a selection of interactive workshops and panel discussions around the conference theme.
As with previous Pluralistic conference, the aim is to create a space in which participants from different backgrounds can share their ideas and experience through respectful open dialogue, in ways that promote solidarity and mutual learning. All are welcome to attend: conference registration is on the basis of a self-select fee to ensure everyone who wishes to be involved is able to do so. The self-select fee is a radical inclusion policy to open learning for all colleagues. The guide price for this Conference is £25.00 – £50.00 , however, we appreciate that income varies greatly in different locations and circumstances. Please contribute what you can to help us maintain inclusive professional training.
Friday 15th November 2024 (UK time 18:30 pm – 21:00, followed by a social event)
Saturday 16th November 2024 (UK time: 9.00 – 16:30)
Online via Zoom, hosted by Onlinevents
Further information about pluralistic counselling and psychotherapy is available at: https://pluralisticpractice.com
___________________________
Sanctuary, Trauma and Psychotherapy: A Dialogue between Decolonising and Pluralistic Perspectives – Divine Charura and John McLeod
Keynote Details:
Working with a group of colleagues at the University of York St John in England, Divine Charura has developed a programme of research that uses a decolonising perspective to explore the experiences of people who are seeking sanctuary as a result of traumatic dislocation of kinship relationships, and the kinds of therapeutic support that may be helpful in such circumstances.
This keynote presentation will explore the implications of that work for pluralistic practice. Four key themes, woven through this research programme as a whole, will be discussed in turn: (i) appreciation of the ongoing, everyday relevance and influence of coloniality; (ii) groundedness: locating research and practice in concrete knowledge of specific situated events and socio-political realities, as opposed to reference to abstract contextual factors; (iii) de-centring the researcher or therapist voice: strategies for avoiding placing the researcher or therapist in an expert or privileged position of power; (iv) co-production and co-design as core principles for therapy practice: flexible and improvised forms of therapeutic support, informed by a relational ethics of solidarity and care.
These themes reflect a commitment to recognising and engaging with the facets and diversity of the other, with the goal of avoiding being entrapped into seeing ourselves as the/an expert who knows what wrong or happening with the other (colonization and misrecognition). The opening section of this dialogue will take the form of a conversation between the two presenters around how a decolonising perspective both challenges and extends current pluralistic practice.
This conversation will then open out to incorporate the voices of conference participants. A briefing paper outlining and summarising key studies published by the York St John group, will be made available to conference delegates in advance, to facilitate their active participation in this event.
‘Trauma’ and Resistance: Innovative Responses to Oppression, Violence and Suffering – Vikki Reynolds
Keynote Details:
Vikki will share stories of practice and acts of resistance that inspire believed-in-hope, describing activist-informed ways of responding to suffering in persons who have been oppressed and harmed. This approach requires a deconstruction of ‘trauma’ and the trauma industry, and instead centres on witnessing folks’ wise and creative and collective acts of resistance. Justice-doing and a decolonising stance for the work is required to resist psychology’s neutrality and objectivity that often blames people for their own suffering from oppression.
A witnessing approach requires that we situate personal suffering in its sociopolitical context of necropolitics & structural abandonment under austerity and neo-liberalism. Witnessing Resistance acknowledges that wherever there is oppression there is resistance, and resists the individualisation and medicalization of both suffering and acts of resistance into criteria of ‘trauma’ and other mental illnesses.
Vikki will address:
- A decolonizing & justice-doing ethical stance
- Resist individualization, objectivity & neutrality of trauma Industry
- Witnessing stance informed by direct action activism
- Understandings of Acts of Resistance
- Stories from practice
Vikki’s articles & speaks free at www.vikkireynolds.ca
Navigating Relational Ethics in Day-to-Day Practice – Andrew Reeves and Lynne Gabriel
Discussion Details:
Join Lynne Gabriel and Andrew Reeves for this engaging 1 hour session titled “Navigating Relational Ethics in Day-to-Day Practice,” where they explore the core themes of their recently launched book.
This session will delve into the critical importance of translating ethical concepts into practical tools embedded in a pluralistic approach, that can be used in everyday practice. Drawing on theories, contemporary challenges, and the authors’ own lived experiences, Lynne and Andrew will discuss how to approach ethical dilemmas through multiple lenses, including social justice and anti-oppressive practice.
Participants will gain insights into developing reflexive ethical literacy, navigating complex relational and professional contexts, and understanding the impact of digital technologies and AI in the counselling professions.
Expect a thought-provoking dialogue that not only addresses ethical frameworks and pluralism, but also invites you to reflect on your role as a practitioner in today’s evolving landscape.
PAPERS & WORKSHOP PRESENTATIONS
